LEARNING SKILLS 2 PRELIM

LESSON 1: INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW

 This chapter contains some general background that lays foundations for the rest of the
book. Keep in mind that this is a scholarly, “academic” book. This means that you need
to read it while you are mentally alert and your mind is in gear. It means that after you
read a paragraph, you should stop and reflect about what the paragraph means to you.
Learning comes from the concentrated, alert mind reading process and from careful
reflection about what you are reading. Learning comes from using what you are learning
and from seeking possible uses of what you are learning.

IMPROVING EDUCATION

This book focuses on improving education by helping preservice and inservice teachers, and
their students, to get better at problem solving. Problem solving is certainly core to a good
education. Thus, better curriculum, instruction, and assessment in this area can lead to
improvements in our overall educational system

However, there are some still larger issues that can be addressed our educational system. From
time to time over the years, have attempted to make a short list of Big Ideas that help me as I
work to improve our education system. Here is the current list:
 Empower and enable the learner and those who directly help learners to learn
 Help students learn to self-assess and to take a steadily increasing level of responsibility
for their own learning
 Help students get better at asking researchable questions and in learning to do the
various types of research that are used to answer such questions

The Web plays a significant role in this endeavor, since a literature search is an important
component of trying to answer a researchable question

 Help all people to get better at being both teachers of themselves learners

ACADEMIC DISCIPLINES

This book is intended for students who are studying many different disciplines. You might
wonder why we have so many different academic disciplines. Indeed, you may wonder what
distinguishes one discipline from another, or the extent to which the various disciplines one can
study in precollege and higher education overlap each other. Each academic discipline can be
defined by a combination of:
 The types of problems, tasks, and activities it addresses
 It accumulated accomplishments, such as its results, achievements, products,
performances, scope, power, uses, impacts on the societies of the world, and so on.
  Its history, culture, methods of communication, and language (including notation and
special vocabulary)
 Its methods of teaching, learning, assessment, and thinking, and what it does to
preserve and sustain its work and pass it on to future generations
 Its tools, methodologies, and types of evidence and arguments used in solving
problems, accomplishing tasks, and recording and sharing accumulated results
 The knowledge and skills that separate and distinguish among
a. A novice
b. A person who has a personally useful level of competence
c. A reasonably competent person
d. An expert
e. A world-class expert

Each discipline has its own ideas as to what constitutes a high level of expertise within the
discipline and its subdisciplines

SUBCONSCIOUS THINKING AND PROBLEM SOLVING

 Your brain and body are highly skilled in solving the problem of keeping you alive. Most
of this goes on a subconscious level. You do not have to consciously think about telling
your heart to be regularly, your lungs to keep breathing regularly and to oxygenate
blood, or your digestive system to digest the food that you eat. You do not have to
consciously tell your immune system to deal with infections.
 You are also highly skilled at solving problems at a conscious level. When you carry on a
conversation or read a book, you are solving complex communications problems.
Interestingly, much of what you are doing as you carry on conversation or read a book
occurs at a subconscious level. For example, you think a thought and your brain
somehow puts together the sequence of muscle, vocal cord, and other physical activities
needed to deliver sentences about the idea. You look at small squiggly drawing on a
page (that is, at letters, words, and sentences) and your brain turn these into silent
sounds, pictures, and meaning in your head
 The conscious and subconscious processes of talking, listening, reading, and writing give
us considerable insight into teaching and learning for problem solving. You learned
speaking and listening from our informal education system. You have an innate ability to
learn oral communication- it is built into your genes. (of course, some people’ genes
don’t work correctly or physical injuries damage part their body that are necessary to
oral speaking and listening)

WHAT IS A PROBLEM SOLVING?

The term PROBLEM SOLVING to include all of the following activities:
 Posing, recognizing, clarifying, and answering questions
 Posing, recognizing, clarifying, and solving problems
 Posing, recognizing, clarifying, and accomplishing tasks
 Posing, recognizing, clarifying, and making decisions
 Using higher-order, critical, and wise thinking to do all the above

This broad definition is intended to compass the critical thinking and higher-order thinking
activities in every discipline. An artist, mathematician, musician, scientist, and poet all do
problem solving

PROBLEM SOLVING VS. CRITICAL THINKING

 Problem solving and critical thinking are closely connected fields of study.
 The term CRITICAL THINKING is the use of those cognitive skills or strategies that
increases the probability of a desirable outcome. It is purposeful, reasoned, and goal
directed. It is the kind of thinking involved in solving problems, formulating inferences,
calculating likelihood, and making decisions. Critical thinkers use these skills
appropriately, without prompting, and usually with conscious intent, in a variety of
settings. That is, they are predisposed to think critically. When we think critically, we are
evaluating the outcomes of our thought processes-how good a decision is or how well a
problem is solved. Critical thinking also involves evaluating the thinking processes- the
reasoning that went into conclusion we have arrived at or the kinds of factors
considered in making a decision.

CRITICAL THINKING- is the ability of students to analyze information and ideas carefully and
logically from multiple perspectives. This skill is demonstrated by the ability of students to:
 Analyze complex issues and make informed decisions
 Synthesize information in order to arrive at reasoned conclusions
 Evaluate the logic, validity, and relevance of data
 Use knowledge and understanding in order to generate and explore new questions

HIGH-ORDER THINKING

The term HIGHER-ORDER thinking is often used in discussing critical thinking and problem
solving. Based on research, it states the higher order thinking:
 Is non-algorithmic- the path of action is not fully specified in advance
 Is complex- with the total path no visible from any single vantage point
 Often yields multiple solutions, each with cost and benefits
 Involves nuanced judgement and interpretation
 Involves the application of multiple criteria, which sometimes conflict with one another
 Often involves uncertainly, because not everything that bears on the task is known
 Involves self-regulation of the thinking process, rather that coaching at every step
 Involves imposing meaning, finding structure in apparent disorder
  Is effortful, with considerable mental involved

Probably you have heard about Benjamin Bloom’s six-part taxonomy of cognitive learning. This
was developed in 1956, and its focus was mainly on college education. However, it is applicable
to education at all levels. The six levels are:

 KNOWLEDGE: recall data or information

 COMPREHENSION: understand the meaning, translation, interpolation, and
interpretation of instructions and problems. State a problem in one’s own words
 APPLICATION: use a concept in a new situation or unprompted use of an abstraction.
Applies what was learned in the classroom into novel situations in the work place
 ANALYSIS: separates material or concepts into component parts so that its
organizational structure may be understood. Distinguishes between facts and
interference
 SYNTHESIS: builds a structure or pattern from diverse elements. Put parts together to
form a whole with emphasis on creating a new meaning or structure
 EVALUATION: make judgements about the value of ideas or materials

Benjamin Bloom (February 21, 1913- September 13, 1999) was an American educational
psychologist who made significant contributions to the classification of educational objectives
and the theory of mastery learning. His research, which showed that education settings and
home environment can foster human potential, transformed education. Bloom developed a
TAXONOMY OF EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES which classified the different learning objectives and
skills that educators set for students. Bloom divided educational objectives into three
DOMAINS:
 Affective
 Psychomotor
 Cognitive
It is hierarchical, like other taxonomies, meaning that learning at the higher levels is
independent on having attained prerequisite knowledge and skills at lower levels. Bloom
intended that the Taxonomy motivate educators to focus on all three domains, creating a more
holistic form of education.

Bloom’s TAXONOMY OF EDUCATION OBJECTIVES is a classification of the different objectives

and skills that educators set for students (learning objectives). Bloom divided educational
objectives into three DOMAINS: Affective, Psychomotor, and Cognitive. This taxonomy is
hierarchical, meaning that learning at the higher levels is dependent on having attained
prerequisite knowledge and skills at lower. Bloom intended that the TAXONOMY motivate
educators to focus on all three domains, creating a more holistic form of education.

AFFECTIVE
Skills in the Affective Domain describe the way people react emotionally and their ability to feel
another living thing’s pain or joy. Affective objectives typically target the awareness and growth
in attitudes, emotion, and feelings. There are five levels in the affective domain moving through
the lowest order processes to the highest:

 RECEIVING- the lowest level; the student passively pays attention. Without this level no
learning can occur
 RESPONDING- the student actively participates in the learning process, not only attends
to a stimulus, the student also reacts in some way
 VALUING- the student attaches a value to an object, phenomenon, or piece of
information
 ORGANIZING- the student can pull together different values, information, and ideas and
accommodate them within his/her own schema; comparing, relating, and elaborating
on what has been learned
  CHARACTERIZING- the student has held a particular value or belief that now exerts
influence on his/her behavior so that it becomes a characteristic

PSYCHOMOTOR
Skills in the Psychomotor Domain describe the ability to physically manipulate a tool or
instrument like a hand or a hammer. Psychomotor objectives usually focus on change and/or
development in behavior and/or skills. Bloom and his colleagues never created subcategories
for skills in the psychomotor domain, but since then other educators have created their own
psychomotor taxonomies:

 REFLEX MOVEMENT- reactions that are not learned

 FUNDAMENTAL MOVEMENT- basic movements such as walking, or grasping
 PERCEPTION- response to stimuli such as visual, auditory, kinesthetic, or tactile
discrimination
 PHYSICAL ABILITIES- stamina that must be developed for further development such as
strength and agility
 SKILLED MOVEMENTS- advanced learned movement as one would find in sports or
acting
 NO DISCURSIVE COMMUNICATION- effective body language, such as gestures and facial
expressions

COGNITIVE
Skills in the Cognitive Domain revolve around knowledge, comprehension, and “thinking
through” a particular topic. Traditional education tends to emphasize the skills in this domain,
particularly the lower-order objectives. There are six levels in the taxonomy, moving through
the lowest order processes to the highest:
 KNOWLEDGE- exhibit memory of previously-learned materials by recalling facts, terms,
basic concepts and answers
a. Knowledge of Specifics- terminology, specific facts
b. Knowledge of Ways and Means of Dealing with Specifics- conventions, trends and
sequences, classifications and categories, criteria, methodology
c. Knowledge of the Universals and Abstractions in a Field- principles and
generalizations, theories and structures
 COMPREHENSION- demonstrative understanding of facts and ideas by organizing,
comparing, translating, interpreting, giving descriptions, and stating main ideas
a. Translation
b. Interpretation
c. Extrapolation
 APPLICATION- using new knowledge. Solve problems to new situations by applying
acquired knowledge, facts, techniques, and rules in a different way
 ANALYSIS- examine and break information into parts by identifying motives or causes.
Make inference and find evidence to support generalizations
a. Analysis of Elements
b. Analysis of Relationships
 c. Analysis of Organizational Principles
 SYNTHESIS- compile information together in a different way by combining elements in a
new pattern or proposing alternative solutions
a. Production of a unique communication
b. Production of a plan, proposed set of operations
c. Derivation of a set of abstract relations
 EVALUATION- present and defend opinions by making judgements about information,
validity of ideas or quality of work based on a set of criteria
a. Judgement in terms of internal evidence
b. Judgements in terms of external criteria

WHY IS CRITICAL THINKING IMPORTANT IN TEACHING?

 According to Paul and Elder (2007), “Much of our thinking, left to itself, is biased,
distorted, partial, uniformed or down-right prejudice. Yet the quality of our life and that
of which we produce, make or build depends precisely on the quantity of our thought.”
Critical thinking is therefore the foundation of a strong education

USING BLOOM’S TAXONOMY OF THINKING SKILLS, THE GOAL TO MOVE STUDENTS FROM
LOWER-TO HIGHER ORDER THINKING:
 From knowledge (information gathering) to comprehension (confirming)
 From application (making use of knowledge) to analysis (taking information apart)
  From evaluation (judging the outcome) to synthesis (putting information together) and
creative generation

The term "higher-order" thinking is often used in discussing critical thinking and problem
solving. Based on research, it states that higher order thinking:
 Is nonalgorithmic-the path of action is not fully specified in advance;
 Is complex with the total path not visible from any single vantage point;
 Often yields multiple solutions, each with costs and benefits; Involves nuanced
judgment and interpretation;
 Involves the application of multiple criteria, which sometimes conflict with one another.
 Often involves uncertainty, because not everything that bears on the task is known.
 Involves self-regulation of the thinking process, rather than coaching at every step,
 Involves imposing meaning, finding structure in apparent disorder,
 Is effortful, with considerable mental work involved,

SOME IMPORTANT ASPECTS OF PROBLEM SOLVING

 Often the thinking and problem solving that we want students to do is to recognize,
pose, clarify and solve complex, challenging problems that they have not previously
encountered. For example, consider the teaching of writing. You may consider good
penmanship and correct spelling to be important, but most people would consider these
lower-order goals. Learning to write in a manner that communicates effectively is a
higher-order, critical thinking goal. In some sense, each writing task is a new problem to
be solved
 Moreover, writing is a powerful aid to the brain. George Miller (1956) discusses the
magic number 7 + 2. He and many others have observed that a typical person’s short-
term memory is limited to about 7 + 2 pieces of chunks of information. Thus, probably
you can read a seven-digit phone number and remember it long enough to key it into a
telephone pad. Your short-term memory is easily overwhelmed by a problem that
contains a larger number that need to be considered all at one time. Skill in using
reading and writing extends the capabilities of oyur brain to deal with complex, multi-
component problems. That is, reading and writing are brain tools that significantly from
increase your problem-solving abilities

George Armitage Miller (February 3, 1920- July 22, 2012) was an American psychologist who
was one of the founders of cognitive psychology, and more broadly, of cognitive science. He
also contributed to the birth of psycholinguistics. Miller wrote several books and directed the
development of WordNet, an outline word-linkage database usable by computer programs. He
authored the paper, “the Magical Number Seve, Plus or Minus Two,” in which he observed that
many different experimental findings considered together reveal the presence of an average
limit of seven for human short-term memory capacity. This paper is frequently cited by
psychologist and in the wider culture. Miller won numerous awards, including the National
Medal of Science.
GEORGE A MILLER’S EXPERIMENT
 The Magical Number Seven experiment purports that the number of objects an average
human can hold in working memory is 7 + 2. What is means is that the human memory
capacity typically includes strings of words or concepts ranging from 5-9. This
information on the limits to the capacity for processing information became one of the
most highly cited papers in psychology

This book places particular emphasis on several important problem-solving ideas:

 Posing, recognizing, clarifying, representing, and solving problems are intrinsic to every
academic discipline or domain. Indeed, each discipline is defined by the specific nature
of the types of problems that is addressed and the methodologies that is uses in trying
to solve the discipline’s problems
 Some traditional tools (for example, reading and writing are useful in addressing the
problems in all disciplines. Information and Communication Technology provides us
with some new and powerful tools that are useful aids to problem solving in every
discipline
 Much of the knowledge, techniques, and strategies for posing, recognizing, clarifying,
representing, and solving problems in a specific domain requires a lot of knowledge of
that domain and may be quite specific to the domain. However, there are also a
number of aspects of posing, recognizing, clarifying, representing and solving problems
that cut across many of all domains, and so there can be considerable transfer of
learning among domains

LESSON 2: WHAT IS A FORMAL PROBLEM?

DEFINITION OFA FORMAL PROBLEM

 Problem solving consist of moving from a given initial situation to a desired goal
situation. That is, problem solving is the process of designing and carrying out a set of
steps to reach a goal. The following figure graphically represents the concept of problem
solving. Usually, the term problem is used to refer to a situation where it is not
immediately obvious how to reach the goal. The exact same situation can be problem
for one person and not a problem (perhaps just a simple activity or routine exercise) for
another person
7 STEPS METHOD TO SOLVE AND DEAL EFFECTIVELY WITH ANY PROBLEM

STEP 1: DEFINE THE PROBLEM CLEARLY

 What exactly is the problem?
 Get the real facts (not apparent facts) (so much time is wasted when the problem is not
understood)

STEP 2: WHAT ARE ALL POSSIBLE CAUSES OF THIS PROBLEM?

 How and why did it happen? (it may solve the problem)
 The better quality of answers you come up with, the better odds you to come up with a
solution)

STEP 3: WHAT ARE THE POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS?

 The more possible solutions you can come up with, the more likely ypu will come up
with an ideal solution

STEP 4: MAKE A DECISION

 Any decision is usually better than no decision at all
 80% of the problems must be resolved as soon as they come up only 20% need time
and deliberation; extra research

STEP 5: ASSIGN RESPONSIBILITY FOR CARRYING OUT THE DECISION

 Who is going to do what, when and to what standard?

STEP 6: SET A SCHEDULE OF REPORTING AND A STANDARD TO MEASURE WHETHER OR NOT

THE DECISION HAS BEEN SUCCESSFUL
 A solution without a standard or deadline is not a solution. It is merely a discussion
STEP 7: TASK YOU OR SEMEONE ELSE WITH TAKING DEFINITE ACTION TO IMPLEMENT THE
SOLUTION AND RESOLVE THE PROBLEM
 Action is EVERYTHNG
 The more you focus on solutions, the smarter you become and the better solutions you
come up with

Here is a formal definition of the term problem. You (personally) have a problem if the
following four conditions are satisfied
1. You have a clearly defined given initial situation
2. You have a clearly defined goal (a desired end situation). Some writers talk about having
multiple goals in a problem. However, such a multiple goal situation can be broken
down into a number of single goal problems
3. You have a clearly defined set of resources that may be applicable in helping you move
from the given initial situation to the desired goal situation. There may be specified
limitations on resources, such as rules, regulations, and guidelines for what you are
allowed to do in attempting to solve a particular problem
4. You have some ownership- you are committed to using some of your own resources,
such as your knowledge, skills, time, money, and so on to achieve the desired final goal

MORE DETAIL ABOUT THE FOUR COMPONENT DEFINITION

 These four components of a well-defined (clearly defined) problem are summarized by
the four words: givens, goal, resources, and ownership. If one or more of these
components are missing, you have an ill-defined problem (that is, a situation) rather
than a well-defined problem. An important aspect of problem solving is realizing when
you are dealing with an ill-defined problem situation and working to transform it into a
well-defined problem
 There is nothing in the definition that suggest how difficult or challenging a particular
problem might be for you. Perhaps you and a friend are faced by the same problem. The
problem might be easy for you to solve and very difficult for your friend to solve, or vise
versa
 Through education and experience, a problem that was difficult for you to solve may
become quite easy for you to solve. Indeed, it may become so easy and routine that you
no longer consider it to be a problem
 This is a key idea. Through study, practice and access to appropriate tools, you can
increase your level of expertise in solving a particular category or type of problem. One
way to think about informal and formal education is that the purpose or goal is to
increase your level of expertise in various problem-solving areas
 Problems do not exist in the Abstract. They exist only when there is ownership. The
owner might be a person, a group of people such as the students in a class, or might be
an organization or a country. An employee may have ownership “assigned” by his/her
supervisor in a company. That is, the company or the supervisor has ownership it to an
employee accepts ownership of a problem as being part of the job, and is expected to
function in a manner consistent with having personal ownership
  Foe the most part, we want students to accept ownership of their overall problem of
obtaining a good education. This works well foe some students, but it is certainly not
uniformly successful. Teachers, parents, and others expend considerable efforts in trying
to get students to have ownership of their education

DEALING WITH PROBLEM SITUATIONS

 Many of the things that people call problems are actually ill-defined (poor-defined)
problem situations. In such cases, one or more of the four components of a clearly
defined problem are missing. For example, you turn on a television set and you view a
brief news item about the homeless people in a large city and the starving children in a
foreign nation. The announcer continues with a news item about students in our school
scoring poorly on an international test, relative to those from some other countries. The
announcer presents each news item as a major problem. But, are these really clearly
defined problems from your point of view?

YOU CAN ASK YOURSELF FOUR QUESTIONS

1. Is there a clearly defined given initial situation? Do I really know the facts? Can I check
out the facts through alternative sources that I feel reliable?
2. Is there a clearly defined goal? Is it really clear to me how I would like things to be? Are
there a number of possible goals? Which goal or goals seem most feasible and viable?
Will I be able to tell if a goal I select has been achieved?
3. Do I know what resources are available to me that I could use to help achieve the goal?
In addition, are there rules, regulations, and guidelines that I need to know about as I
work to solve this problem?
4. Do I have ownership- do I care enough to devote some of my own resources? Am I
willing to spend some of my own time, money, and mental and physical energy on
achieving the goal?

 If you can answer, "yes" to each of these questions, then you (personally) have a formal,
clearly defined problem.
 Often, your answer to one or more of the questions will be "no." Then, the last question
is crucial. If you have ownership—if you really care about the problem situation—you
may begin to think about and clarify the problem situation. You may decide on what you
feel are appropriate statements of the givens and the goal. You may seek resources
from others and make a commitment of your own resources. You may then proceed to
attempt to solve the problem.
 Finally, you need to know that just because you have a clearly defined problem does not
mean that you (or indeed, anyone else) can solve it. Many problems have no solution.
 A clear definition of a problem is a starting point for attempting to solve a problem.
Often the process of attempting to solve a problem leads to posing a new, related
problem that better fits your knowledge and skills, resources, and level of commitment.

SOLVABLE AND UNSOLVABLE PROBLEMS

  Find two even integers whose sum is an odd integer. Find two chemicals, neither
containing atoms of gold, that when mixed together and heated over a Busen burner
will produce gold
 The point is, just because one has clearly defined problem does not mean that one has a
solvable problem. Probably you can give a good argument that the first of the two
problems listed above does not have a solution. The second of the problems
confounded alchemists for many years. The Busen burner restriction is an important
part of this problem. Gold can be produced by the heat and pressure inside a sun
 It is easy to find clearly defined problems that have no solution. It is easy to find clearly
defined problems that have exactly one solution, and its easy to find others that have
two solutions, three solutions, or still more solutions. Thus, one of the things to think
about when faced by a clearly defined problem is that it might not have solution, it
might have exactly one solution, or it might have more than one solution
 The world of problem solving also faces the situation of situations in which one is
seeking a "good" solution or "the best" solution. Suppose that I am trying to decide
what clothes to wear to work today. There are lots of possible solutions, since I have a
variety of clothes. Some of my possible choices are likely to be better than others. Thus,
for example, it typically is not considered "good" to wear mismatched socks or a dress
shirt with a hole in one elbow and a large stain on the front. However, if this happens to
be a freaky Friday day, either or both of these choices might be good. How does one
decide which of a number of possible good solutions is "the best?" Indeed, what is there
about a real-world problem such as choice of clothing that suggests that there is one
"best" solution? Is there a best way to raise a child or a best way to teach students how
to read?

LESSON 3: INFORMATION AND PROBLEM OVERLOAD

 it is common to talk about information overload. The totality of information that is being
stored and made available to people is increasing quite rapidly. Far more information is
being gathered and created in a year than a person can learn in many lifetimes of study.
  However, a different way to look at this situation is that we have a problem overload,
and we do not yet have easy access to enough information to help solve or to solve the
problems. This chapter explores information overload and problem overload.

INFORMATION OVERLOAD

 Information overload describes the excess of information available to a person aiming

to complete a task or make a decision. This impedes the decision-making process,
resulting in a poor (or even no) decision being made. When designing products
(websites or apps), designers should be especially careful to ensure they prevent
information overload from affecting the users' experience.
 The term was coined by Bertram Gross, professor of political science, in his 1964 work,
The Managing of Organizations. Information overload has been a problem throughout
history, particularly during the Renaissance and Industrial Revolution periods. However,
the dawn of the Information Age and access to powerful and low-cost data collection on
an automated basis have brought us more information than was available at any other
point in history. As a result, the problem of information overload is more relevant to
designers than ever before.

PROBLEM OVERLOAD
 Think about a typical television ad. It presents a problem situation and tries to convince
you that you, personally, have a problem. It then presents a possible solution-"buy and
use our product."
 Think about a typical television or radio news broadcast. It describes problem situations
in your community, state, nation, and the world. There is a strong effort to have you
accept some ownership of these problem situations.
 Think about browsing through a large grocery store, doing the grocery shopping for a
week. The number of decision-making situations you face is immense. What do I really
need versus what do I want? Which of the various brands of a product should I buy?

 It is easy to extent the list of problem situations you may encounter in a typical day.
Some of these will catch your attention and you may take some ownership. Thus, it is
possible that you will acquire far more problems in a day than you can possibly solve.
You are faced by problem overload.

 People deal with this problem overload situation in a variety of ways. One way is to
refuse to accept ownership of most of the problem situations you encounter. Perhaps
you find it "interesting" that hundreds of thousands of children are starving in a
particular country, or that hundreds hur of thousands of people have been killed in an
"ethnic cleansing" in another region of the world. In both cases, you might make a
conscious or subconscious decision that you are unwilling or unable to devote your
personal time and other resources to do anything about these situations.

 Similarly, you may be very good at tuning out television, radio, and other ads. Just turn
off your audiovisual input system when an ad begins. This is a way to help solve your
personal problem of problem overload. The general idea is to carefully choose the
problem situations that you want to accept as problems. Filter out problem situations
that you don't want to attempt to solve.

 Now, think about this in terms of a precollege or college student. Besides all of the types
of problem situations being encountered in every day life, a student is bombarded with
problem situations presented by teachers and textbooks. A student may consciously or
subconsciously refuse to take ownership in many of these problem situations. The same
skills used to tune out television ads can be used to tune out a teacher. Indeed, this is a
common occurrence.

 Okay, let's think this through. You are a teacher who is personally committed to solving
the problem of helping students to learn and paid to solve this problem. Thus, you have
ownership. You have the resources that come from your teacher education program of
study, your experience of being a student, and your experience of being a teacher.
There are many other resources in a school setting that you can draw upon, such as
other teachers, school administrators, consultants, and so on.

 You can think of the problem presented by each individual student, each class, each
subject area you are teaching, and so on. These are constantly changing and very
 challenging problems. It is no wonder that most teachers feel overworked and
underappreciated. Their job is always one of problem overload.

 If there were easy and simple solutions to this overload problem, teachers would have
found them. However, it seems to many teachers that their problem overload is
increasing.

PARADIGM SHIFT
 Accordingly, a paradigm shift is defined as "an important change that happens when the
usual way of thinking about or doing something is replaced by a new and different way."

WHO OR WHAT SHOULD DO THE SOLVING OF A PROBLEM?

One of the big ideas in problem solving is the need to convert an ill-defined problem situation
into a well-defined problem. Consider the three ideas:

1. The most important idea in problem solving is building upon the previous work of
oneself and others. Thus, we place considerable emphasis in school on learning about
what problems people know how to solve and how to solve them.
2. If a problem is sufficiently clearly defined (sufficiently well defined), then work on
solving the problem and actual processes of solving the problem can be stored and then
communicated to others. In some cases, a tool (perhaps a computerized tool) can be
built that can automatically solve the problem. Then, in essence, the problem is no
longer a problem, but merely a simple situation that is easily dealt with when it occurs.
3. Many problems are not solvable. Many others are not solvable within the limits of the
resources that one has available.

These three ideas combine in many individual and group research projects, product design
projects, and product development projects throughout the world. Government, large
companies, and philanthropic foundations often fund large problem-solving efforts. Creative,
inventive people are providing us with a continual stream of products and services that solve or
help to solve problems.

WHAT SHOULD STUDENTS BE LEARNING ABOUT PROBLEMS THAT PEOPLE KNOW HOW TO
SOLVE?

Example:
A person in the workshop told us that she was not good at problem solving. She then went on
to explain her weaknesses. These included needing to use a income tax preparation service to
do her income tax, needing to use a car service to maintain her car, needing to use her
physician to take care of routine medical problems, and so on.

This was a wonderful example. The woman had accepted ownership of a variety of standardly
occurring problem situations. She understood the problems at a level of knowing why they
needed to be solved and the results of solving the problems. She solved these problems by
using her financial resources. We all do this! Most of us don't consider this as evidence of not
being good at problem solving.

SUMMARY

 All of us are faced by the possibility of having both problem overload and information
overload. Indeed, in our current "rush, rush" society, it seems inevitable that many
people will frequently have such problems.

 One way to help deal with problem and information overload is to become award of
these problems. Learn to screen problem situations to reduce the number that you
accept as problems. Learn to screen information sources and information so that you
can avoid being overloaded.

DON'T TAKE IT UPON YOUR SELF TO NEED TO KNOW SO MUCH INFORMATION. DEVELOP
BETTER SKILLS IN USING A COMPUTER AND OTHER INFORMATION RETRIEVAL TOOLS.

A substitute for knowing information consists of:

1. Knowing that the information exists and some of the potential uses of the information. In
particular, it is important to know potential uses in solving problems and accomplishing tasks
where you currently have ownership or are likely to have ownership in the future.

2. Having the knowledge and skills so that when you need particular information, you can find,
understand, and use it.

LESSON 4: PROBLEM AND TASK TEAM

 When you are attempting to solve a problem, you draw upon your personal knowledge,
skills, experience, and other resources. There are many problem situations where a
team of people work together, each contributing their knowledge, skills, and
experience. One of the reasons that ICT is such a powerful aid to problem solving is that
it facilitates communication and sharing among a group of people working on a
 challenging problem. Another reason is that a computer can be thought of as a member
of a team working on a problem. A computer brings certain types of capabilities that
people do not have.

INTRODUCTION

Donald Norman is a cognitive scientist who has written extensively in the area of human-
machine interfaces. Norman (1993) begins with a discussion of how tools (physical and mental
artifacts) make us smarter. That is, tools make it possible for us to solve a wide range of
intellectual and physical problems that we cannot solve without the tools.

David Perkins (1992) uses the term "Person Plus" to refer to a person making use of physical
and mental tools. He notes that in many situations, a person with appropriate training,
experience, and tools can far outperform a person who lacks these aids. This is certainly a Big
Idea that is important in both informal and formal education.

Donald Norman, David Perkins, and many others have put forth the idea of a person or team of
people working together with mental and physical tools to solve complex problems and
accomplish complex tasks. In this book I use the term Problem or Task Team (P/T Team) to refer
to a person or a group of people and their physical and mental tools. Figure 4.1 illustrates the
P/T Team. The concepts that make up the diagram are explained in subsequent paragraphs.
Figure 4.1. The P/T Team People aided by physical and mental tools.

Figure 4.1 shows a person or a group of people at the center of a triangle of three major
categories of aids to posing and solving problems:

1. Mental Aids. Even before the invention of reading, writing, and arithmetic about 5,200
years ago, people made use of notches on bones, drawings on cave walls, and other aids
to counting and to keeping track of important events. Reading, writing, and arithmetic
are mental aids. These have led to the development of books, math tables, libraries,
calculators, computers, and many other mental aids. Mental aids supplement and
extent capabilities of a person's mind. In some sense, they can be thought of as an
auxiliary brain.

2. Physical Aids. The steam engine provided the power that led to the beginning of the
industrial revolution. Well before that time, however, humans had developed the flint
knife, stone ax, spear, bow and arrow, plow, hoe, telescope, and many other aids to
extend the physical capabilities of the human body. Now we have cars, airplanes, and
scanning electron microscopes. We have a telecommunications system that includes
fiber optics, communications satellites, and cellular telephones.

3. Educational Aids. Education is the glue that holds it all together. Our formal and
informal educational systems help people learn to use the mental and physical tools as
well as their own minds and bodies.

PROJECT-BASED LEARNING
 Project-Based Learning (PBL) is mentioned a number of times in this book. In PBL, an
individual or a team works on a project over an extended length time. This work leads to
a product, performance, and/or presentation. PBL is one way to create a problem-
solving environment in which a team works to accomplish a task that is too large for an
individual person to accomplish in the time available.
TEAMS-BASED PBL
 is a challenge both to the teacher and to the team. If a team of people work together to
product a product, how does one assess the individual effort of each student? To what
extent should the teacher attempt to assess learning to be a contributing and facilitating
member of a team? How does a teacher deal with a student who would rather be a
"loaner?" How can one give a test to a class in which different teams of students work
on different topics?

PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING
 A project in Project-Based Learning need not be rooted in a specific problem that
currently interests a lot of people. Thus, a project might be an exploration of food or
medicine available to soldiers from the South and the North during the US Civil War.
 Problem-Based Learning (also abbreviated as PBL) has students or teams of students
working on specific problems. Quite often, the problems are quite specific to the course
being taught or the discipline being studied. The goal is to develop a good solution to a
specific problem. Problem-based learning has a number of the characteristics of project-
based learning, but the goal is to produce a workable solution to a specific problem.

PROBLEM SOLVING AS A PROCESS

 Suppose that you are faced by the problem (the task, the assignment, the project) of
writing a four-page essay on a specified topic. The chances are that producing a high
quality solution will take considerable time and effort. It will also take careful thinking
and planning.
 Over thousands of year, people have studied different ways to approach this problem.
In the mid 1970s, a group of people got together to share their collective knowledge
about how to teach and learn how to write. This led to the creation of the Bay Area
Writing Project.

LESSON 5: TRANSFER OF LEARNING AND EXPERTISE AND DOMAIN SPECIFICITY

INTRODUCTION: WE ALL DO TRANSFER OF OUR LEARNING

 Transfer of learning is commonplace and often done without conscious thought. For
example, ple, suppose when you were a child and learning to tie your that shoes, all of
your shoes had brown, cotton shoelaces. You mastered tying brown, cotton shoelaces.
Then you got new shoes. The new shoes were a little bigger, and they had white, nylon
 shoe laces. The chances are that you had no trouble in transferring your shoe-tying skills
to the new larger shoes with the different shoelaces.

 This example gives us some insight into one type of transfer of learning. Transfer occurs
at a subconscious level if one has achieved automaticity of that which is to be
transferred, and if one is transferring this learning to a problem that is sufficiently
similar to the original situation so that differences are handled at a subconscious level,
perhaps aided by a little conscious thought.

 However, there are many transfer of learning situations that are far more difficult than
shoe tying. For example, a secondary school math class might teach the metric system
of units. The next hour, the math class students go to a science class. Frequently the
science teacher reports that the students claim a complete lack of knowledge about the
metric system. Essentially no transfer of learning has occurred from the math class to
the science class.
 On a more general note, employers often complain that their newly hired employees
have totally inadequate educations. Part of their complaint is that the employees cannot
perform tasks on the job that they "should have" learned to do while in school. Schools
respond by saying that the students have been taught to accomplish the tasks. Clearly,
this is a transfer of learning problem that is owned jointly by schools, employers, and
employees.
 One of the difficulties or challenges in transfer of learning is that people forget-that is,
their ability to retrieve and use learned knowledge and skills decreases over times of not
using the knowledge and skills. Thus, it is desirable for students to learn in a manner
that facilitates long-term retention as well as rapid and effective relearning.

TRANSFER OF LEARNING THEORIES

 The goal of gaining general skills in the N transfer of your learning is easier said than
done. Researchers have worked to develop a general theory of transfer of learning a
theory that could be used by teachers and writers to help students get better at
transfer. This has proven to be a difficult research challenge.
 At one time, it was common to talk about transfer of learning in terms of near and far
transfer. This "near and far" theory of transfer suggested that some problems and tasks
are so nearly alike that transfer of learning occurs easily and naturally.
 In near transfer, a particular problem or task is studied and practiced to a high level of
automaticity. When a nearly similar problem or task is encountered, it is automatically
solved with little or no conscious thought. This is called near transfer. The shoe-tying
example given above illustrates near transfer. All other transfer situations were called
far transfer.
 It is appropriate to learn or train for near transfer in many situations. For example, take
the situation of shooting free throws in a basketball game. Shooting free throws can be
practiced repeatedly. A high level of automaticity can be developed. How to shoot a free
throw can be stored in the procedural, muscle memory part of one's brain. Even then,
basketball players routinely practice shooting free throws in order to maintain and
perhaps improve their skill.
 Many potential transfer of learning situations do not lend themselves to the
automaticity approach. There are many problems that are somewhat related, but that in
some sense are relatively far removed from each other. A person attempting to make
the transfer of learning between two such problems does not automatically "see" 1 the
connections between the two problems. Far transfer often requires careful analysis and
deep thinking.
 Now, with the terms near transfer and far transfer in mind, think about learning to read.
One aspect of reading is decoding. I look at a word, puzzle over it, and sound it out.
Perhaps I draw upon context, such as the book, pictures in the book, earlier parts of the
story, and so on. Eventually I decode the word, silently "hearing" the word in my mind.
With enough practice, this decoding becomes fast and automatic. Eventually I can look
at a word and quickly decode it, not having to draw on contextual aids. I have learned
the word so well that near transfer occurs.
 However, automaticity in decoding lots of words does not, by itself, make a person into
a good reader. One must mentally create meaning and understanding from the words,
sentences, and paragraphs. With a lot of instruction and practice, a majority of students
learn to read well enough by the end of the third grade so that they can have
reasonable success in using their reading skills as an aid to learning in areas whey they
already have a significant amount of knowledge.
 The transfer from this situation to being able to learn a new area by reading is a large
step we can call it far transfer. The reading challenge is building an understanding of the
new area, learning to decode and understand the new words, and learning to tie the
new knowledge in with one's current knowledge. For most students, it takes many years
of instruction, practice, and learning a variety of disciplines to become skilled at this far
transfer task.
  Getting better at solving novel, challenging problems requires getting better at both
near transfer and far transfer in tasks and skills related to problem solving. Since people
vary considerably from each other, the near transfer and far transfer aspects of problem
solving and how to get better at problem solving vary considerably among students.

HIGH-ROAD AND LOW-ROAD TRANSFER OF LEARNING

 The theory of near and far transfer has somewhat limited value in a theory of teaching
and learning. We know that near and far transfer occur. We know that some students
readily accomplish far transfer tasks, while others do not. We know that far transfer
does not readily occur for most students. The difficulty with this theory of near and far
transfer is that it does not provide a foundation or a plan for helping a person to get
better at far transfer and dealing with novel and complex problems. It does not tell us
how to teach to increase far transfer.
 In recent years, the low-road/high- road theory on transfer of learning, developed by
Salomon & Perkins (1988), has proven to be a more fruitful theory. Low-road transfer
refers to developing some knowledge and/or skill to a high level of automaticity. It
usually requires a great deal of practice in varying settings. Shoe tying, keyboarding,
driving a car, and one-digit arithmetic facts are examples of areas in which such
automaticity can be achieved and is quite useful.
 High-road transfer involves: cognitive understanding; purposeful and conscious analysis;
mindfulness; and application of strategies that cut across disciplines. In high-road
transfer, there is deliberate mindful abstraction of an idea that can transfer, and then
conscious and deliberate application of the idea when faced by a problem where the
idea may be useful. The next section gives a few examples of such strategies.

USE OF STRATEGIES IN HIGH-ROAD TRANSFER

 Learning for high-road transfer can occur in any academic course. For example, suppose
a math class is teaching the strategy of breaking a complex problem into a number of
smaller, less complex problems. The goal is to break the complex problem down into a
set of simpler problems, all of which you can solve. Give the strategy a name, such as
top-down strategy. Then have students practice this strategy in many different math
problem-solving situations. Then have students practice the strategy in a variety of non-
math situations. The top- down strategy is useful in preparing a 4-course dinner,
developing a a busine business plan for a business, getting ready to go on a date,
designing a building or a garden, writing. and in a huge number of other problem solving
situations.
 You want your students to reflect on the strategy and how it fits their ways of dealing
with the problems they encounter. When faced by a complex problem, you want your
students to consciously consider breaking it into pieces that are more manageable. That
is, you want them to make use of high-road transfer of this strategy.
HUGGING AND BRIDGING

 This discussion about low-road and high-road transfer of learning points to ways to help
your students increase their transfer skills. A well-studied and effective approach is to
teach "hugging" and "bridging" (Salomon and Perkins, 1988).
 "Hugging." means teaching to broaden the conditions for when low road transfer will
occur. The child learning to tie a bowknot in a shoelace can also be learning to tie a
bowknot in a string or ribbon holding a package. The child can practice tying bows with a
variety of materials in a variety of setting, for a variety of purposes. For example, bow
tying can be done with eyes closed or in the dark.
 "Bridging," means explicitly teaching for high- road transfer. Rather than expecting
students to achieve high-road transfer spontaneously, the teacher facilitates student
practice on some of the high-road transfers that they want students to be able to make.
Teachers can point out explicitly the more general principles behind particular skills or
knowledge. For example, suppose that you want students to make a high-road transfer
between history and current events, and vice versa. Have students explicitly focus on
similarities and differences between conditions that led to a civil war or a revolutionary
war several hundred years ago, and conditions that might be leading to a civil war or
revolutionary war in some country right now. This can be frequently practiced as
relevant current events unfold from day to day, and as one looks at historical events
throughout the ages.

MINDFULNESS AND REFLECTIVENESS

 You can also get better through mindfulness at high-road transfer and reflectiveness
(metacognition). When faced by a complex problem, mentally run through your list of
general- purpose strategies, checking to see if any of your strategies might be applicable
and useful. View every complex problem-solving situation as an opportunity to learn.
After solving a problem, reflect about what you have learned about problem solving by
solving the problem. Be mindful of ideas that are of potential use in solving other
problems. Similar reflection can profitably be applied to situations in which you try to
solve a complex problem, but do not succeed.

SUMMARY/FINAL REMARKS

 Transfer of learning is certainly one of the most important ideas in education. Education
can be improved by helping students better understand the concept of transfer of
learning and how to learn for transfer.
 The types of problems that students encounter in courses tend to be ones that have be
previously encountered (and solved) by many thousands of students. From a student's
point of view, the goal is to solve the problem. However, from a teacher point of view
the goal is to learn about solving a general type of problem in a manner that will
transfer to other problems. All teaching should be done in a manner that increases
transfer of learning.